Belated Race Report

A week and one day ago I bashed around the relaxed and laid-back Bribie course. I'll admit, while the sun was out when that breeze hit me my teeth were chattering! I find the combination of nerves and cold weather makes my body twitch! Great preparation though - I AM READY TO RACE!

Another nice tide-assisted swim. At the start I had a splash (not as cold as my imagination made it seem) before the buzzer to get warmed up and have a wee (yes, a wee). I found my spot, towards the edge so not to get too caught up in the argy-bargy. Which worked... for about 40 meters! Then it was on, with dudes from either side coming in over the top. I held my space, pushed hard and was through in a few minutes, and once I found some space got into a nice rhythm... long strokes, fingers touching my legs each time (almost sounds erotic). Out of the water on 10:03 (not too shabby) and took advantage of my run up to transition.

Slow onto my bike, but once it was on, IT WAS ON! Played leap-frog with a guy in my age group that I know - a solid rider who works in a bike shop. It gave me the motivation to push hard (2 lap course) and by the second lap was pushing ahead. Finished the 20k in 30:24 which was scorching! Felt happy with my position on the bike, pushed hard but still had something in my legs for the run. Always good on the ride seeing family cheering me on! It makes me ride harder if only for that spot (I want them to think I ride fast!).


Shoes on, and off we go onto the run course. Feeling happy, could only see one or two bikes racked when I came back in so was guessing only one or two people in front of me. Got into a rhythm after a few minutes (as hard as it feels in the quads to start with, I remind myself that the 'full-blooded' feeling ALWAYS goes away - which it does). Again, had the benefit of seeing the guys I know are racing well at each turn around point so could measure my pace against them - slowly pushed the gap bigger and bigger and BANG! 17:30 for the 5k. 3rd overall!

Another good hit-out - my racing this season has been fantastic. Maybe all this training stuff is paying off?

Closing In On GO TIME!

Only 4 sleeps until the Bribie hit-out. I'm feeling more confident as the day draws closer, my niggling injuries have *touch wood* eased off a bit which has given me the opportunity to do some more running. A solid run yesterday with some good 1k efforts and suddenly my mind has gone from saying "you're going to struggle to knock out a fast run at Bribie" to "Woo hoo! Bring it on tiger!". So maybe that is a slight exaggeration but I'm more optimistic than I was a few days ago. With all the riding I've done lets hope I smash out a solid ride so the running is less important.

Booked the big end-of-season dance today - Mooloolaba! Given how fast the races have filled out lately (triathlon's are definitely the flavour of the month for many punters) it was easy and painless to get my spot - login, enter credit card details and voila! It's a great race with a great atmosphere and for some reason I feel like it is on my turf (given my family live there).

A hard run off the bike in the morning, a swim tomorrow night then ease into the weekend before I hunt and destroy some people on Sunday :o)

Solid Week of Training

In total contrast to what I just mentioned about injuries, I have in fact had a strong week of training. I read something earlier in the week about how to make the most of your training, especially as you try to juggle it with work and family. Something key that stood out for me was the idea that you should have a few key sessions a week that are high intensity and that you focus on. Except with swimming - the article said you can approach each swim with a 'kill it' kind of attitude. It made me realise that I focus a lot on getting my technique right when in the water, but had become a little relaxed in the intensity I used. So this week, I smashed each session and swam hard. 3 sessions down and you know what? It worked. I feel like I got a lot more out of the sessions and pulled up fine the next day. I'm still slow as but that's not the point ;o)

The squad had a 20k time trial on the bike this week*. When I saw it on my program my first thought was "What a coincidence, I was just thinking on the weekend that I would like to see how fast I can go over 20k's". My second thought was, "there is no way I'm getting up at 4:30am to do that session". It's tough man! Reseting that desire to stay in bed almost every day because you have a session to do. Fighting the urge to pull the cover up higher and sneak in some more sleep. It can be overcome. My aunty asked me during the week about where I find the inspiration from. Stay tuned - I will share my secrets soon!

* to brag, I was the fastest over a tough highly 20k time trial. Look out world!

Arrghh! The Cardinal Rule Broken Already

It's Friday - one working week into the 10 week countdown. And I have already broken the golden rules of triathlon training. For those of you that don't know, there is a common consensus that 3 rules exit in triathlon training:

1. Don't get injured
2. Don't get sick
3. Don't break rule 1 or 2
   

To be fair, both (yes there are two) injuries are pre-existing. The first is a result of long toenails and 21.1k's of hard running at the Yeppoon half ironman. That race (which resulted in me being crowned QLD State Champ for my age group - ha!) left me with two bruised big toenails. That was almost 7 weeks ago. One feel off last week in the pool (I did find it after some looking around), but the other is resisting the natural path and decided to get infected. Stupid toenail. Being the child that I am, I tried to 'assist' it yesterday and got 90% of the way but it persistently held on. It makes it a little uncomfortable to run, but hopefully it will soon realise that it is unwanted and will f@ck off.

The second is more serious as it is having a bigger impact on what I can and can't do. I strained my adductor (inside left leg from groin to knee, which is where the muscle inserts and hurts). I had just started to increase my training volume, and had done a 5k time trial (that means quick) run with my squad. When I saw the physio, she asked if I had done some fast running lately. I said "yes". She asked if I was stretching properly. I sheepishly looked at the floor and said "uum, yeah, maybe... no, not really". She stuck some needles into it and told me how to stretch it. She also suggested resting it which I did (for two days, surely that's enough... right?? *insert sarcasm here*). A week later, it is still hanging around. I spoke with my tri coach today and we are modifying my training plan to assist with the recovery.

So lesson learnt. Stretch. Everything. Maybe that is what I should tell Al if she ever catches me having some 'private time'. "What? I'm just stretching sweetie, you know it's important to stretch".